Péchés d'une Meurtrière
by Prosper-the-XVIII
Summary: Scars series. Before she became M, it is little known that she was put through hell and a half. And one man, the very person whom detested her when she was appointed, saved her life... Warnings: strong action violence, moderate gore, torture and slight language.
1. Chapter 1: Hell on Earth

**Title translates out of French as 'Sins of a Murderess' for reasons that become apparent later The long and short of this is my fic Scars Don't Fade from alternating POVs; M/Evelyn's, Camille's and James's. Will be majorly written in first person. You don't have to have read SDF first, but it may help. Enjoy!**

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EVELYN

This is madness. Why did I agree to this? What crazy part of me decided that this would be a good idea? I swear to god, I will _kill _M if I manage out of this alive, which right now looks unlikely.

_He stared out of the window, not making eye contact with me the exact way he always did when he decided to send me out onto the kind of impossibly risky assignments that he seemed to keep reserved for a Ms Evelyn Cameron. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, me. My head cocked involuntarily to one side, my teeth grinding together and willing him to look at me.  
"Sir? I'm still here,"  
"Oh, em...005, you may want to sit down," I did as I was told. He turned to face me, his eyes cold and gleaming like dark chips of glass. "I trust that after your recent episode with Agent Rodriguez, the pair of you have made a full recovery?"  
"Well, being shot at by Al Qaeda was never going to be fun, but apart from the scars, I know that I'm reasonably okay by now. You wanted to see me?"  
"Yes. Something else has come up in Rene, and I think you're the only one for the job. As far as I know, there's no Muslim extremist terrorist groups involved this time, but it's dangerous," he brought up a few mugshots on one of the wall screens; a dark-haired woman, horrific scars to the olive complexion of her face, a high-boned male Spaniard and another man; tall, blonde and terrifyingly strong. "They're your targets. The guys are Javier Sanchez and Luc Sauvage; the pair of them were released from prison less than four months ago. The woman; Camille Delacoire. She's directly related to one of our technicians, Christophe Delacoire. She worked for the CIA until about 1977, when we believe she was captured, and no-one's seen her since; she's allegedly been dead for years.  
"The three put together have almost four hundred criminal convictions to their names; murder, rape, torture, grievous bodily harm, high treason, arson, possession of illegal substances and manslaughter to name but a few, and all have served at least one term in prison in at least one counrty. Sauvage's wanted in over six countries and was on death row in the United Arab Emirates until he broke out. They're a force to be reckoned with; three of Europe's most wanted criminals. They're currently leading the French drugs cartel Deja Vu, which we believe are responsible for almost 72% of drug crime here as they're linked to and supply most street gangs in the UK.  
"I'm warning you now that this could result in the end of your life. It's risky, but it's important. Are you sure you're ready?"  
"I've been ready since before I was born."_

Why in hell did I say that? If M says that it'll go wrong, then it probably will. So I reckon I'm paying the price for the biggest cock-up of my life right now.

"What the hell are you doing here!?" A raised voice speaking heavily Spanish-accented French hits my ears as a hand grabs my ankle and tugs me violently from underneath the industrial ledge shelf where I had been attempting to stick plastic explosive. My mission objective had been 'kill targets; bugger off; try and drag my arse back to the UK at least reasonably unscathed' and I'd been sent out armed to the teeth with guns, explosives and goodness knows what else, so I'd decided that blowing up the HQ of Deja Vu was my best bet at doing just that. But I'd managed to put that plan straight down the toilet in one fell sweep by forgetting to put my phone on silent.

Yes, that's how I've been found out. M decided that now was an appropriate time to call me for an update. I grimace in pain as my face drags along concrete and I'm forced into glaring torchlight. Shit! Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit! I don't have my gun for reasons beyond my understanding, and now all three of the French drug lords I'm meant to be assassinating are right in front of me. I twitch away from the three of them; I can't help but notice that to my 5'1", the lot of them - probably even Camille - are well over six foot tall. I'm beginning to think that criminals are always tall simply to spite me. The enormous blonde dude that had a hold on my ankle speaks again now. "I found something."  
"Congratulations, Javier, what do you want, a certificate?" It's the woman now; Camille. She slaps past him and towers over me terrifyingly. "What the hell are you doing here?"  
My tongue is numb. Whatever I want to say - to say anything at all - it isn't coming out in English, let alone French.  
"Cat got your tongue, lady? I want to know who you work for, because no random just walks in here with explosives."  
I still can't speak; I shake my head lamely and shut my eyes, hoping that this is some kind of dodgy nightmare and that any second I'll wake back up in London and none of this will have ever happened.

"Well, if it kills me, I'm going to find out. Javier; strip search. Luc; make sure she can't go anywhere."

This command is what starts the living hell. I curl into myself, hoping that he's not going to kill me or anything like that.

I would far sooner be dead. Before I can tell what's happening, he's stamped on my shin. As his boot collides with me, I hear the sickening grind and crunch of shattering bones, at the same time agony exploding in my leg. What has he done to me? I look up, terrified, and realize that my lower leg, ankle to knee, now forms about six jagged angles, each about an inch apart from the next, the sharp edges of my shattered tibia threatening to push through my flesh. I wretch and throw up a little in my mouth, the pain suddenly worsening now that I know what kind of state I'm in.

He's not finished. A hank of my hair is pulled up in his hand, and my head smashes off the ground with such a force I'm bloody surprised that my skull doesn't shatter as well.

Everything goes black...

TO BE CONTINUED...


	2. Chapter 2: Camille's Theory

**Okay, just so you can get a better mental picture of characters in this, Evelyn is Judi Dench's M, just about twenty five years younger and blonde. Camille; if this were a movie, I would have Helena Bonham-Carter playing her; she's just that kind of creepy, subtly villainous persona that she seems to be good at. She's got a massive scar diagonally across the center of her face and a slightly smaller one across her left eye that resulted in her losing her sight in that side. Luc and Javier are basically just typical thugs - I would probably have Sacha Baron Cohen as Luc and Russel Crowe as Javier. Oh God, I've got the Thenardiers and Javert as the bad guys. If I didn't have as much against Anne Hathaway as I do (that BAFTA was Judi Dench's, I'm sorry) I'd have the entire cast of Les Miserables in here! (Oh, try and imagine whatever Camille, Luc and Javier are saying being said with French accents. Trust me, it helps)**

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CAMILLE

"Find anything?" I ask after Javier comes back from tugging the slumped form of the woman who had, in short, been shoving her nose where we really didn't want it, into another room - well, another massive space as you don't really tend to get rooms in warehouses - and searching her.  
"Not really, apart from this," he drops a small chip of metal into my hand which looks surprisingly like an imprint of a tooth.  
"Javier," Luc, stupid lummox he is, has to insult what he doesn't understand as per usual. "That's a filling."  
"Don't mock what you don't know," I scowl at him, making him reel back as, with a dead eye and face pretty much made of scar tissue, I can look pretty foreboding when I need to. My tongue shifts about in the hollowed-out space of my own left molar which used to be occupied by what I think this is. My own secret service career left me with quite a lot of valuable knowledge with regards to this kind of thing. My sharp thumbnail chips off the majority of the metal, and when I eventually unearth the white tubular capsule and burst it into my hand, I know exactly what it is. I can only let the bitter almond-stinking liquid in the thing stay on my hand for a few seconds before having to wipe it off my trousers as it burns the skin of my hand. "Cyanide. I knew it. She has to be some kind of agent for someone, or else she wouldn't have had that on her.

"Yes, but she's an idiot," Luc pointed out blankly. "There's nothing that she'd be able to pick up about us, judging by her idea of secrecy."  
"She may be an idiot, but she's an idiot that keeps showing up," I whip round and narrowly restrain myself from slapping him. "She's been stalking me for weeks and even if she is as thick as she seems, she has to know something by now and we can't risk her spilling." I have to swallow an enormous lump in my throat. What I have always sworn that I would never wish upon or inflict on anyone following my own two months of nightmare in Kazakhstan when I was in my late twenties a few years ago seems to be my only current option. "Purely precautionary, we need to find out how much she knows. After that, we can use her as leverage against whoever she's with. We're going to have to pull the torture card."

"How?" The response from both the moronic dirt-bags that are the only idiots that I can convince to work so close to me is simultaneous and equally stupid-sounding.  
"The concept of torture is is simple," the gun down the waistband of my black jeans goes into my hand. "Inflict pain; it doesn't matter how. For example, deprive them of basic needs such as water, and taunt them with whatever it is you've decided to keep away from them until they fess up. Knife play can be effective. As can you two; forced sex works on occasion." Luc must have noticed me stutter on 'knife'.  
"Is that what they did to you?"

I roll my eves - eye - though inside I'm screaming. "They thought that keeping me in a room with virtually no air for weeks at a time would be effective enough. When that never worked, they decided that because I'm a woman, slashing my face open would work. I escaped, but not before they had managed to scar me for life. The CIA gave up on me; I saved myself. See, that's why I don't believe in complex tortures. Enough to inflict excruciating pain suffices." I tighten my trigger finger, and a shot fires into our captive's arm. Despite being deeply unconscious she convulses and cries out in pain.

I have an idea.

Thus her hell begins...

TO BE CONTINUED...


	3. Chapter 3: Save Myself

**Not moaning, but I would love a few more reviews for this :) Reba, I'm looking at you ;D **

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EVELYN

The force of another lead bullet fired from less than a foot away from me penetrating my already bloodied arm makes my entire body jolt backwards and throws my head back, making it hit off of the back of the chair I'm tied to. I clench my jaw as another wave of numbness, then excruciating pain burns up my arm. I've long since stopped counting the number of times I've been shot, but I'm guessing that it's up somewhere in the regions of twenty four times in my arms alone by this point. I remember coming round, then Camille automatically bashed on with what seemed to be her plan; shooting me in the arms and legs repeatedly and demanding information, which thank God I've managed not to spill. That had been three days ago. I've been being held captive and tortured for three days, by three people. Isn't fate artistic? They say bad things happen in threes. Evelyn I'm almost laughing at the irony of my situation. But the pain was almost completely unimaginable. As well as my arms, I've been shot around sixteen or eighteen times in my right leg; I can't move the bottom half of my leg and there was absolutely no recognizable feeling whatsoever from my knee downwards. The thought that a bullet may have torn muscle or destroyed a nerve crosses my mind virtually every ten seconds, but I'm choosing to ignore it, knowing that I have far, far more important things to concentrate on, like keeping quiet. To make matters worse, my other leg is completely shattered. When I was caught, Luc had thrown me to the ground and stamped on it to prevent me from going anywhere. It had certainly worked. My leg is twisted and broken, and absolute agony. Whatever else had happened to me, I'm in a very bad way indeed.

Camille finishes screwing a silencer onto her revolving pistol and aims it towards my head. If she was going to shoot me anywhere other than my head, which right now wasn't looking too bad, then it was going to hurt like fury.

"You have one last chance to talk. I want to know who you are and who you're working for. I wouldn't mind bank details either. I can tell that you're not enjoying this. You tell us what we want to hear; we let you go. You lie one more time; you die. Start talking, or I'm going to decorate the wall with your brains!" The unpleaseant Parisian gang leader hissed in French. The run-down Adidas warehouse in which I'm being held and tortured rings with Camille's words. My voice is a harsh, gravelly whisper and it hurts to talk, but I'm making myself. I respond, also in (rather poor) French;  
"I have nothing to declare. My name is Evelyn Bonahm-Carter, I'm forty-eight years old. I live in London. I work for no-one." This was only half a lie. I've missed out everything about MI6, but the rest was mostly true.  
"Talk!" Another shot shakes my body, fired into my right bicep this time. "Who do you work for?"  
It comes out in a distressed rush, spat out like a pianed gasp. "MI6!" I fall forwards, killing myself that I've betrayed my country. But I suddenly have a brainwave. if I can't kill them, I'll have to just save myself. As I speak, I jerk my hand a little, and manage to press the button on the side of my watch that detonates the plastic explosive I had planted a few days previously. The blast sets off about six different alarms at once, and then there was the sound of the actual explosion as well, so naturally the trio are shaken and panicked. Camille makes a slit-throat gesture at me and mouths "I'll get you later" as she, Luc and Javier went running, fearing that they were being attacked

The warehouse takes an entire hour to walk around completely, but I still have to work quickly if I am to have even the faintest hope of being rescued. Using my teeth, I manage to get a grip on the penknife strapped to my upper arm that was somehow unspotted by Javier, pull it up and out of my shirt and drop it into my hands. I catch it and cut the cable ties binding my wrists. It takes far more effort than it should and hurts like anything, but it's done and managed all the same. It's a huge part of MI6 training, being taught how to evade capture, and, if the worst happens, how to tolerate the pain that comes with torture, but in training, they had used high-voltage electric shocks and poisonous jellyfish (the memory of that makes me feel physically sick.) Being shot about 36 times from point-blank range was a bit...I want to say unorthodox, but I know that it isn't right. Still, no amount of training had or ever could prepare me for this. With a few fragile, jerky movements, I shift my hands round to my front. My limbs are stiff from lack of use, and the tiniest movement stings like hell, though despite myself, steely determination keeps me going like the foolhardy bitch I am.  
Pressing down hard on the face of my watch, I speak as loudly as I can into it. "M, this is Agent Evelyn Bonham-Carter. Do you copy?"  
"I hear you. What's the problem?" My boss' voice gives me a little security.  
"M, can we try and keep this short? I detonated the explosive to buy some time, but talking bloody hurts. abort the mission. I'm in a derelict warehouse outside of Rene, I'm severely injured and I can't walk."  
"Okay, sou you're telling me that the mission has gone completely balls-up, that five years of MI6 work is now completely down the pan and you're being tortured?"  
"Sounds about right."  
"I knew it. I've had an agent positioned around five kilometers away from you for a few days now. I'll get him operational. Are you in need of immediate medical treatment?"  
I roll my eyes. M can be a bit of a plonker sometimes. "What does it sound like?"  
"Oi, keep your tampon in. Okay, see you in about three hours."

TO BE CONTINUED...

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**Any guesses at who this 'agent' could be? CLUE: Shaken, not stirred :)**


	4. Chapter 4: Kill Me Now

**Okay, can I just make something TOTALLY clear; this is set when M (Evelyn for those who haven't noticed) is 48; she's not M yet, she has no idea who the hell James Bond is and right now she just happens to have ended up in the wrong place at the wrong time with three French gangsters who are probably high. Though it will kill the ending, if you still don't get this, read Scars Don't Fade, my personal fave of all my fics. Though, unlike that story, which is a bit with M and Eve, then a massive flashback, this is being told as it ; Evelyn loses it completely, then James Bond to the rescue!**

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EVELYN

I sit and wait. I really can't do much else, so, in a desperate attempt at trying to help myself a little, I start trying to wrench a bullet out of my left arm, one that's just below my elbow Bracing myself, I plunge two fingers into the wound and pull out the chunk of lead, but I've seemingly just made it worse. By the looks of things, with the bullets bunging up the holes there hasn't been too much blood, but that had just changed in the case of that one wound. It's bleeding far more than it had to begin with, and I'm starting to panic. What if either the bullet or my fingernail had hit an artery? I look at my feet. I'm tired, in the 'I want to just curl up and die' sense of the phrase, and losing the will to live. This is it. I know what I'm going to do...

I wipe my bloody hand off my trousers, and shove a finger into my mouth. Wrench out the filling in my back tooth. Pick the worst of the metal off of it. And unearth my emergency cyanide capsule

As I stick it into her mouth, the taste is awful but familiar at the same time. I remember my espionage instructor's voice when it became standard procedure for all field agents to have something like that concealed in one of their teeth for dire emergencies. _"Put it in your mouth. The plastic around the actual poison should melt away. If it doesn't, bite into it. The poison has a high acid content, so if it doesn't work, you're going to end up with third-degree chemical burns in your mouth. If you feel that; swallow it. If not; spit it out. There's something up."_ Well, I'm going to do just that. Whatever I'm trying to commit suicide with is just dissolving in my mouth harmlessly and doing absolutely nothing.  
Suspicious, I spit the contents of my mouth into the palm of my hand and sniff it. It's then that I remember the fact that she had been knocked unconscious when I was caught for a considerable amount of time. Plus, when I had come to, there had been a numbness that I still can't explain in the back of my mouth. I appear to have had some 'dental work' done whilst I was dead to the world.  
Because what's in my hand is a mixture of tiny chips of metal, saliva...

And the dissolved remains of an aspirin tablet.

I slump forwards. How the hell was the whole aspirin thing even bloody POSSIBLE? The pain I'm in was something that I really would never wish upon anyone else, not even Camille, though all this was her fault in the first place. I stare down at myself. Blood is gushing from the one now open wound in my left arm in particular, but I'm still completely covered in the stuff. I'm at the point of completely giving up. Until I hear someone shouting in French. A feminine voice, cold as ice.

Oh, shit. Ohshitohshitohshit.

I can see Camille, with the silenced pistol in her hand, turn to Luc. "Fifty euros that I can shoot her in the head from here!"  
Oh christ. I may have completely lost the will to live, but I don't want to die because a gangster was betting someone that she can shoot me in the head from ten feet away. I might want to die, but I'm going to have some kind of say when it comes to the end of my own life thankyouverymuch. The click as Camille pulls back the firing mechanism echoes through the warehouse. This is it; I'm really going to die this time. What's taking you so long? For god's sake, would you just get this over with?

But I hear a screech of tyres as I prepare myself to finally let darkness invade and my pain come to an end once and for all, followed by a scream as Camille goes under the wheels of the pale blue Aston Martin that had just driven through the wall. The car reverses a little, and the man driving it climbs out. He's in his late twenties with cropped auburn hair, clad in a suit and seemingly totally calm, though I know when he sees me he flinches, though out of disgust or pity I can't tell. He forces the gun out of Camille's dying hand, quickly shoots her in the head, then wastes no time in doing the exact same to Javier and Luc. "Game. Over." He says as he drops the gun and half-runs, half-struts to my side. This must be the rescuer M was on about. When he speaks this close to me, I notice his Scottish dialect. His breath on the side of my neck and hand gently resting on my shoulder finally gives me security.

"You Evelyn?" He asks, crouching by my side. Just breathing is painful now, so I just nod, thinking that talking is probably not the best idea. The agent speaks again. "Right, I'm getting you out of here. What I want you to do is lean forward as far as you can, and put your left arm around my shoulders, okay?" I I do as I'm asked, everything screaming in pained protest at sudden movement and my broken leg feeling as if something's jolted out of place even more. However, I keep the mental pact that I had just made with myself and don't talk. It's funny how when you've just lost the will to live and then a chance at survival and recuperation comes, and that's suddenly washed straight down the loo. The young agent carries me towards the Aston Martin...


	5. Chapter 5: Like a Disease

EVELYN

I'm lying across all three back seats of the Aston Martin, my head pressed against the cold glass of the window. The white polo shirt I'm wearing is completely stained red by now, I'm all to concious of the fact that I'm lying in a pool of my own blood and when I catch her reflection in the rear-veiw mirror, I'm pretty sure that there's far more white than blonde in my shoulder-length hair. But by this point, I'm too weak to care about something as trivial and stupid as one's personal appearance. My vision is blurry from loss of blood, I cann't think straight; my breathing is now forced - I feel as if involentary actions such as my chest contracting when I draw breath are sapping my energy and killing me faster - and by now I'm pretty sure that I'm dying, but I hold that thought. If there is such a feeling as that of your body shutting itself down, then I am starting to feel that now, and it's agony so much that I would be screaming if I could find the strength anywhere within me to do so.

My currently nameless rescuer is in the front, both driving and having an incredibly loud phone conversation with M over the speakerphone built into the car. Obviously I can hear every word both men said, and the fact that they're talking as if I've died already makes me feel utterly given up on.  
"007, I'm doing everything I can. Now utter another syllable on the subject and I'll have you killed. And beleive me, that's no exaggeration."  
"M, I really don't care! Her condition is a lot worse than previously feared, she's losing loads of blood and if we don't get her to hospital within around five minutes then she's going to DIE!"  
M's voice quietens and he sounds a lot more serious. That tone is one I'm all to familiar with. "007, is she in the veichle with you?"  
I'm assuming that 'she' is myself, and 007 my saviour for lack of a better term. 007 curtly replies to M's question. "Yes."  
"And can she hear you?"  
"Yes."  
"Then I suggest you shut up or-"  
Feeling as if I'm going to be sick if I so much as open my mouth and my entire body convulsing every so often with painful spasms, I force myself to speak at last. The sound of my own voice seems like one I've almost forgotten completely, but in fact it sounds nothing like me at all, which explains quite a lot. I sound harsh, as if I've been choking down sand. "M, 007 or whatever your name is, I've been shot about 36 times within the space of three days. I've tried to kill myself once toady and the only reason I'm not dead already is beacuse someone replaced my cyanide capsule with an aspirin. How the hell that happened, I dont know, but on the subject of living or dying; 007, do I look like I bloody well care?"  
At this, M seems to have a change of heart. "Evelyn, wheather you care or not, I'm getting you through this if it's the last thing I do. 007, drive as fast as you can to your nearest hospital, which is about eight kilometers away. If you get a tickeet, rip it up. I'll call and arrange an air ambulance to get you two back to the UK within the hour. M out."

I half-smile, though like almost everything else now this hurts. My eyelids flicker every few moments and my limbs have become heavy, though whetehr or not that's my mind attempting to let me know that I'm quite literally full of lead I have no idea whatsoever. "My blood group's B if that's any help whatsoever." I breathe out heavily, closing my eyes and hoping for some kind of release from this when I wake up, be it treatment or death. "Thank you. W-what's your name?"  
The man in the front seat turns to me, showing a sympathetic straight-faced grimace. "The name's Bond," he says coyly. I'm passing out from loss of blood by this point, I can tell, but as I lose consciousness completely, this is the last thing that I hear and acknowledge; "James Bond..."

TO BE CONTINUED...


	6. Chapter 6: Sleep Well

**Okay, first chapter from James's POV!**

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JAMES

This, my first mission since I was suspended last month, is going to make or break me. It's all I can do not to burst into floods of tears as I sit by Evelyn's bed in hospital. The woman whom I've scarcely even met seems to have me completely smitten by her enigmatic silence, not that she has any choice in the matter. She's been in a medically induced coma for a week now, nothing but the IV in her left arm, feeding tube up her nose and oxygen mask obscuring most pf her face keeping her alive. For an unknown reason I'm blaming myself. The coma had been a complete last resort; once we had first arrived - me caked in blood with a half-dead, unconscious woman who could well have been my mother in my arms - a final bout of strength had brought her round for a few minutes, though now she seemed to have been letting herself surrender, the pain had obviously become far too much for her and she had been screaming in agony even with morphine being pumped into her system before they had anesthetized her and rushed her into surgery. And despite all of our hopes, she had worsened. And worsened. And worsened. She had lost roughly a third of the blood in her; her body was apparently rejecting blood transfusions. By now, no one but me, not even M, had any hope for her left.

Taking a shaky breath, I physically shook before pushing open the door to her room.  
"Evelyn," I gasp somewhat uneasily. I can't see the worst of her injuries as a sheet is obscuring most of her like a shroud, but her face is covered in bruises and tiny cuts, making her pale complexion more prominent than ever. "Look, I have no idea whether or not you can hear me, but I really need you to hold on, and not just me," tears stab at my eyes. I nearly slap myself; I can hardly believe that I'm crying over a woman I scarcely know the name of. "There's people that need you; your husband, your kids, your country..." before I realize what I've actually done, she shudders noticeably - this I pick up as her hand is somehow in mine, probably by my own fault - and sighs as if in pain. Guilt stabs at me like a knife. "Who am I kidding, I'm sorry. I'm sorry that it's you that you're in so much pain, that I can't do anything and yet I have to be selfish and beg you to stay, to stay with me, even though you probably have no idea who I am. It isn't fair on you; no-one can be as strong as you've been, if you want to go then you can, you deserve it," I stand, smearing tears down my face, though I'm beyond caring.

* * *

The machines in the room all slur into one continuous bleep, indicating that she's gone, and for good. Guilt stabs at my chest, threatening to puncture my lungs and tear my heart in two. Had I driven faster, gotten there sooner, known what to do... But it was too late now. I can't distract myself from the thought of her widowed husband. Of the children who have lost a mother...

M sits ranting under his breath, clearly distraught though hiding it as best he can as a few nurses close in and begin unplugging Evelyn from the various droning machines. I let go of her hand silently, murmuring a final few words to her before I stand to leave. "Sleep well, beautiful lady..."

But as I stand, refusing to let M see my tears or show weakness, I hear a stilted, gravelly voice, distorted yet still distinct. That one voice I haven't heard in a fortnight and for that time have been so longing to.

"One more bloody word about me being dead and as soon as I can use my arms, I'll strangle the lot of you..."

TO BE CONTINUED...


	7. Chapter 7: Till Death Do Us Part

**Okay, I just watched Licence to Kill for the first time and as Franz Sanchez seems to be some kind of male version of Camille, I'm 'borrowing' a few of his lines for her - this is gonna be a few flashbacks followed by that last scene from Evelyn's POV. Enjoy, ladies ;-) Oh, and at school I have to do some essay as a different persona, and I was going to do Camille at the time of her torture. The bits I wrote in here was kind of planning, and once I'm done the piece at school, do you think it'd be worth typing up and posting? Cuz I'm sure that there may be others that want to know why Camille's such a heartless bitch and what happened to her.**

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EVELYN

_"Please..." I cried out through great gasping sobs and screams of agony. Blindfolded, I had been forced upright on my shattered leg. Unbearable pain had soon completely consumed me as I tried to stay standing, weight kept solely on my right side, but a sharp crack of a gun firing followed by a tidal wave of numbness and agony taking hold of me threw me totally off balance, landing painfully with my leg twisted virtually in half underneath me and a bleeding bullet wound in my arm that I'm nearly sure has shattered my elbow. "Stop..." I looked up, my arms behind me in handcuffs and pleading etched across my face. As large a smirk as I can manage through a twisted grimace showed on my lips. "You wouldn't kill me..."  
"Damn straight I wouldn't," Camille smirked evilly, clipping something onto her gun. What she was going to do I had no idea; I was almost so innocent and soft to the pain of torture that I was like a child. "The state you're in I'm surprised you aren't begging to give me answers. By the time this cartridge is empty you'll be kissing my ass to get me to kill you. By the time this is over, I'll know all there is to know about you. And the longer it takes for you to tell me what I want to know, the more painful its going to get." It was at this point that I realized that Luc and Javier weren't the ones to be frightened of; they were goons - simply idiots who would do whatever Camille told them to if it kept them in her good books; nothing but muscle to add power to scrawny Camille and her power with weapons and words alike. The road to hell had begun, and it was all but paved with good intentions..._

* * *

_"You know, you're damn lucky that I don't have the...equipment that I want for this," Camille had this way of taunting me, teasing me with death whilst she gassed about hell knows what. Her gun was pointed underneath my chin, forcing my head up though through my pain I can barely hold it straight. "The CIA sold me out; the air pressure in my cell was so high I could hardly breathe and I was damn lucky my head didn't explode. After that it got messy. The cosmetic damage and lack of a left eye you can see isn't all though. They - and still I'm not sure who 'they' were - cut my hair and gashed my head open to my skull. I was forced to swallow liquid nitrogen and peroxide. I had to go days without water with poisonous jellyfish tangled around my abdomen; I barely made it out with all four limbs and I was minutes from death when I was found at the side of the road in a puddle of my own blood. That's what mafias and extremists - the professionals - can do in a month. Break someone so much that there's only a circumcised shell of a woman left of her with nothing left but hatred left giving her the will to live. But still I kept all their secrets. You and I, sweetie, are and were in the same boat. Secrets to keep to the grave, and you're going to be abandoned by your precious England as soon as they realize that you're not going to live. So for the time being," She paced backwards before taking aim. "As soon as I fire this bullet, it'll rupture the arteries in your neck and you'll die at my feet vomiting your own blood."  
_

_Was M so heartless as to abandon me? We're not the Americans, I know, but did he think I was dead?_

* * *

I can't move. I can't see or speak or even breathe properly; I'm getting oxygen via a plastic tube rammed down my throat. I seem to have lost a few of my senses; I can't see or feel anything and for days I've been drifting about in a controlled sleep. I don't like it; what just happened keeps flashing in front of me, but it's better than paralysis. I have a vague idea of how my limbs are positioned; that's it. One of my legs is ramrod straight and covered in something hard, the other flopped beside it. One hand is folded over my chest, the other hanging over the side of my bed, and someone, probably M, was holding onto it. My hair's clinging to the back of my neck with sweat and I want to get it off; it's annoying me, but my arms seem to be completely dead; there's no recognisable feeling whatsoever in any part of my body.

I hear someone, again probably M, muttering; "Evelyn, please wake up..." The grip on my hand tightens. It hurts, but I can't say anything, so can't complain. I think about that. I AM awake, I just can't move. Wake up from what?

My thoughts are a mess. Where am I? What's going on? Why can't I move? M, would you let go of my hand before you break my fingers? Am I supposed to be able to feel my pulse in my _eyelids_? What's that noise?

The noise is in fact a heart rate monitor. And it soon occurs to me that I'm hooked up to it. And it's a lot slower than it should be. I focus on that. I have never been religious in any way shape or form, but at that moment I pray that my heart wasn't going to give out. Life sucks sometimes, but I've had a change of heart since the cyanide/aspirin episode a few.. Hours? Days? Months? I don't know how long it had been since I had tried to kill myself with a headache pill that I was under the impression was a highly acidic fast-acting poison capsule, but I don't want to die. Not now.

The mildly irritating yet terrifying noise echoes inside my head. The sounds are getting slower, growing further and further apart with every second. This is just plain weird. I have a resting heart rate of 85, but the beeps are slowing. I'm terrified that they're going to stop at any moment. Beep...Beep...Beep...Beep...

And the tone goes flatline. What the hell? I can still feel my being, my messed-up thoughts are still drifting around in my head, I've actually regained control of my own breath. I can jerk my fingers ever so slightly. But I can't feel my pulse anywhere in my whole body. I felt better than I have in god knows how long, but the impossible is running through the cavernous space of my mind. It can't be. But it is.

My heart has stopped.

I'm dead. Apparently.

TO BE CONTINUED...


	8. Chapter 8: Don't Ever Go

**Liz, this is for you :-) It's more or less plain sailing from here; I'm gonna start being nicer to Evelyn, I promise :D And does anyone know who David might remind them of?**

**(Oh, I should've answered this sooner, Reba, but no. This is a Craig!Bond universe fic; he's just quite a bit younger ;D)**

* * *

EVELYN

I can feel various wires being pulled out of me. The first thing to go happens to be the heart rate monitor. It's all bloody confusing. How can I be medically dead...but feel so alive at the same time? I'm getting the annoying sensation of being able to feel my heart beat in the back of my eyelids again. Wait, heartbeat? So maybe I'm not dead after all...

M lets go of my hand, and I hear him pacing and muttering about how the bloody NHS had let me die. He'd now lost one of his best agents, blah, blah, blah.

I grimace. My throat's raw and I'm still having to force myself to make any kind of audible sound, but again, I do. "One more bloody word about me being dead and as soon as I can use my arms, I'm going to strangle you."  
M's face lights up. I open my eyes. My vision is still fuzzy, but I can make out the faint shapes of both M and my rescuer, James Bond, standing as if about to leave. M's for some reason ecstatic. "Evelyn! You're alive!"  
"Well, either that or we're all dead and in a horribly lifelike situation, so I think I'll go with your answer. Wha- how long have I been out?"  
Instinctively, I turn to James for an answer. I've certainly taken an automatic liking to the young Scotsman, although she was a tiny bit jealous of the fact that he was already a double 0, yet I've barely been given my status as 005 and I'm almost old enough to be his mother; I've probably been in the field almost since he was in nappies. However, it's M who speaks. "Just short of a fortnight now," he said, taking my hand in his grasp again. "You were in a complete mess when 007 here eventually got you to hospital. And it was not a pretty sight, I'll guarantee you. You needed two major operations, six blood transfusions, over 200 stitches and there was one really huge wound in your arm that needed a skin graft. They took more than thirty-seven lead pellets out of you all in all. You've been in a medically induced coma for nine days now. You've actually been dead for about the last quarter of a minute."  
"How is that even possible?"  
"Search me," M shrugs. I shift myself up a bit so that I'm almost sitting, though movement at all is painful.  
"Injury-wise, what happened to me? I can't feel most of my right leg, but everything else hurts like fury."  
"Okay, you were shot in both arms and your right leg over thirty six times. Your left leg is broken in about six different places; there's a bunch of titanium pins in there holding everything together. And your other leg...that's where I'm afraid I've got bad news. A few rounds totally destroyed a ligament in the back of your knee. And remember when you broke your kneecap on a training exercise? Well, one of the metal pins put in then jolted backwards, so whenever you bent your leg you ended up with a bit of metal tearing a hole in the muscle structure of your leg. You needed surgery to remove that, but they had to take out quite a bit of damaged tendon in the process. That kind of thing does heal, but it takes time and lots of it. Until the muscle heals up, which generally takes the best part of four months, then the bottom of your leg is effectively paralyzed. There's no nerve connection; that was all destroyed when you were shot, so you shouldn't feel a thing, but I'll be incredibly surprised if you can walk at all for any time during the next six months."

The news falls on me like a two-ton weight. I hear M's words. And my world completely falls apart...

* * *

There's nothing written into life that says anything about it having to be fair, but right now I'm wishing there was. Eventually it'd all been explained; I've been in intensive care for a few weeks and if I'm out by the end of the month I'll think myself lucky. I've never wanted to die more in my entire life. This has ended everything bar my life; my career is over as far as I know or am concerned. Pain has now become a day-to-day part of existence for me, though it's by now subsided into a dull but ever-constant ache. I can barely sleep for nightmares or fear of them. But right now I'm reminded of the reason that I no longer want to be near to dying.

"Mum?" David pushes his glasses up the bridge of his nose, his floppy dark hair in desperate need of a trim and his hands nervously wringing. He seems to have been the first of the crowd of my four kids to have stuck his head round my door; his three older sisters are all behind him - Hope with her nose in a battered copy of _Jane Eyre_, June fidgeting and chipping her nail polish off and Summer acting what should be my part, being the mother and ushering them all in. Summer's eighteen; June fifteen, Hope thirteen and David twelve. I smile weakly, opening my arms as much as I can and letting him into an embrace. He snuggles into me in a way that would be expected from a much younger girl, and despite adoring breathing in his musty scent and running my hands through his hair, the feel of his worn cardigan against the stitched-up wounds in my arms makes me wince, breathing out sharply.  
"David, stop sucking up; you're hurting her!"  
"Summer, I would much appreciate not being treated as if I were made of china, thank you. I'm fine; just a bit sore. Where the hell is your dad?"  
"Dead in a ditch for all we know; he's not at home but I called him and he said he'd be here soon," Hope looked up from her novel before lowering her head again.  
"Well then...I'm so sorry you lot have to see me like this; it isn't fair on you," I sigh, honestly feeling dreadful.  
"It isn't your fault. Besides, you're our mother; it'd be pretty cold not to care after all this has happened to you," David's glasses are obviously misting up, but this I put aside. I have no idea how our bond is so strong compared to the girls, but he really is mini-me, in persona if not appearance...

TO BE CONTINUED...


	9. Chapter 9: Never No More

DAVID **(A/N Q for those who didn't realize :P)**

_'After three weeks of searching for their remains, the bodies of notorious French drug lords, Camille Delacoire, Luc Tatou and Javier Lopez have been found three weeks in the wake of their deaths, along with blood and bone fragments believed to belong to Evelyn Bonham-Carter; the MI6 agent who spent nine days comatose in a critical condition following brutal torture at the trio's - the inner circle of a French drugs group, Deja Vu - hands...'_

"Turn it off," I can't help but gasp fervently as I punch the car radio from my position in the front passenger seat on the way back home. Summer's driving again - to be honest I'm scared for my life; she's really a public menace when behind the wheel, and I know from experience; she almost ran me over about an hour ago when attempting to park and failing miserably - Hope and June are in the back and Dad's still with Mum at the hospital.  
"Jesus, calm down!" Summer swerves madly, causing me and Hope to slam against the windows and June ending up lying across Hope's lap.  
"My name's David, not Jesus," I say somewhat moodily. "And I'm sorry but I don't want to sit here and listen about the people that almost killed Mum. And the fact that they thought it was necessary to point out that they found bits of her DNA as well..." I tail off, shuddering.  
"It's almost obvious that they would've, Laserbrain. And you're just going to have to stick it out because unless we're all having the same bad dream, this is happening." Hope tugs a fistful of my hair, making me grimace. Yes, I know that my hair embarrasses us both by looking ridiculously fluffy and that somehow even something really short like a David Beckham (Jesus Christ, why do I have to share a name with possibly the most idiotic lump of testosterone on the planet?) can grow out within a few weeks, but long and messy kind of suits me as far as I care.

"I know, but..." I know exactly. I truly can't stand seeing Mum post-mission. She's just never...her. I mean, even comatose, battered, bleeding and broken she still looks the same but the visible change in her demeanor and mood makes my heart hurt to be honest. I know who she is; the smallish blonde woman that I call 'mum'; an absolute pain in the backside sometimes, a modern art fanatic, a complete sucker for hot chocolate and probably the most important person in my life to date, save from John Lennon (I seem to be his doppelganger in a sense; we both have/had stupid glasses, seriously retarded hair and a thing about The Beatles.) But her now...she just doesn't seem the same. I'll never stop loving her; I truly won't. It'd take more than a few cuts and scars to make me stop caring. But I worry about her. And I hate seeing her in pain.

It's not her.

It's not fair.

TO BE CONTINUED...


	10. Chapter 10: If I'd Died Young

**Well ladies and gents, I thought you'd need this. A six-hour drive home from the Harry Potter Studios earlier gave me a lot of thinking time (and I also watched Skyfall for the fifty something-ith time) so I decided to write this for you. 00M if you squint :D **

**(Oh, and the super-cute David/Q and I thank you all for loving him so much! ^_^) **

* * *

JAMES

"Jesus Christ, I'm sorry."  
"For what?" Despite herself and everything else, Evelyn looks up at me from her magazine, an inquisitive glow in her cobalt eyes. I've been thinking out loud; I had no idea that she was awake let alone listening. For the eight weeks she's been in hospital I've frequented her room in the hours when she's been asleep or unconscious, leaving all else for her husband and family, and I'm pretty sure she has no idea that I've seen her at all since the...I actually don't know what to say about what happened in Renes. Accident makes it sound a lot less bad than it actually was. Episode turns it into a joke. Ordeal is cliche. I think that 'hell' might suffice.

"Well...everything. I feel like this is my fault. I'm sorry I had no idea what on earth I was supposed to do. I'm sorry I didn't make that bitch who did this to you and her goons suffer to punish them for it. I'm sorry that you just about lost your leg because it twisted so much what with me manhandling you. I'm-" A fragile movement of her arm presses a finger to my lips and shuts me up. In the period of time she's been here the stitches in the wounds to her arms have been removed, but the scars that they've left behind look dreadful. I don't want to say this to her face, but I'm sure she thinks the same way.

"James, look at me," I actually can't. I can see the hurt I've put in her eyes. "James, you pathetic sod, _look at me!_ You can't blame yourself. Were you holding the gun?"  
"No."  
"Did this happen to me on your orders?"  
"No."  
"Do I look as if I'm blaming you?"  
"No."  
"Well I'm not, so you thought correctly. You tried your level best to save me, and I'm alive and more-or-less in one piece so for that I think I might always be in your debt."  
"But what if you'd died? Look at it through my eyes; when you flatlined, what do you think I was thinking? The thought of the man who wouldn't even have gone grey when he lost his wife and the kids who were barely out of primary school without a mother because of my bloody incompetence."  
"But I didn't, and even if I had it's just the way of the world. James, stop with the 'what if' and the pessimism. I'm here, I'm alive and it's because of _you_..." She smiles, bringing me into her with her arm. I stare into her eyes. Good god, if I hadn't known she was almost fifty, I wouldn't have thought she was older than about thirty-nine. "You, James. And for that...Well, I love you..."

Before I actually grasp what she's doing I feel her lips pressing hard against mine. And I love it. For what feels like hours, we stay, she lying and I sitting, sharing our secret embrace...

TO BE CONTINUED...


	11. Chapter 11: La Péchés d'une Meurtrière

**This is the last chapter everyone. For this, you need to have actually read Scars Don't Fade. It's been fun, I hope you liked it :)**

* * *

M

Eve clearly has no idea what to say, or indeed how she might go about saying it. She looks up at me, a look of pure horror and pity on her face. I've put my jacket back on, obscuring every one of the horrific scars those three days left me with. I'm tapping my fingers off the desk, staring into space. Eve seems to see that I've plugged my laptop back in, and have started typing something into an email.  
"Agent Tiago Rodriguez is missing, presumed dead after a mission in Dandong, China... . . . . . . . . . . / / / / / / / /" I seem to have accidentally leaned on the full stop key, and then the forward slash, but I've all too obviously lost the heart to continue. Eve notices the tears in my eyes.  
"I know I cut off at a bit of an awkward point, but I couldn't bring myself to remember any more of it in that much detail. You only really live if you want to. And there were times like when my husband abandoned me that I honestly thought about pitching myself out the window or something..." My voice tails off, and I place my head on my desk, my entire body shuddering with silent sobs and my face wet with tears that I don't want her to see. "And I suppose that now there's the thought that my M had tried to save me, and managed it at that. But it's impossible now for me to do that for Tiago. He could be god knows where and have had god knows what done to him, and I can't do anything at all. I feel awful..."

Eve puts her hand on my shoulder. "You did what you could. And if he's got half a brain then he'll know what the best thing to do is. And not meaning to be nosy or anything, but you said that the mission put an end to your fieldwork career. I have my suspicions, but what really made you quit?"  
"Well, I suppose I should tell you. But what happens in this room stays in this room, do I make myself totally clear?"  
"Crystal, ma'am."  
"Well, the assumptions that people make are generally wrong. Most people think, well, that is if you count Gareth Mallory as a _person," _I laugh right there, then continue when I realize that I was trying to be serious. "that the ligament damage I suffered was too severe to continue doing what I did best, but that's utter rubbish. What really happened was...well, I don't know. I couldn't walk at all for almost six months, and I was on crutches for four after that, but when I could eventually do all the fitness tests and debriefings and all that malarkey, I turned out pretty well. Save for one thing. I was in a surprisingly good physical state considering what I'd been through. I was okay psychologically as well. But maybe it was simply a phobia brought on by my experience. Maybe I was afraid that I would do to someone what a Ms Camille Delacoire once did to me. But whatever the reason, I had to give up work as an active agent. Why? I couldn't shoot. And I mean any kind of gun aim totally down the pan. Now before I break down with twenty-year old PTSD, haven't you got something you need to be doing?"

"Well, I was meant to be at a debriefing/psychology test about ten minutes ago now."  
"Then you're going to be in serious shit. Get a move on!"  
Eve turns and leaves, and I slump at my desk, accidentally elbowing over the cold cup of double espresso next to me. Thinking about what I had just told Eve makes me want to remember maybe just a little more. Not the really bad, mentally - and physically, in some cases - scarring stuff. But probably just my final debriefing...

_I dragged myself out of the pool, still completely soaking wet and totally shattered. I was quite a strong swimmer; not particularly fast, but I could go for ages. I trudged soggily over to my mobile phone, which was in my kit bag and ringing impatiently. "M?" I said, picking it up and holding it to my ear.  
_"_Evelyn, where are you?"  
"Swimming," I said, breathless. "But what're you calling for, our meeting's not for another fifteen minutes."  
"How long have you been at it?"  
"Three quarters of an hour; I was planning to keep going for another ten minutes."  
"Right. How much have you done?"  
"Just under four kilometers now."  
"You're still on recovery, remember, don't overdo it. Look, the thing with the PM took less time than anticipated, can I get you as soon as possible?"  
"Test results?"  
"Affirmative."  
"I'll be right there." With that, I snapped my phone shut, threw a towel around my shoulders and made my way towards the changing rooms._

* * *

_"Right, you know why you're here,'' M said, as I took a seat, still wringing out my wet hair. "Now, I'm going to ask you. What do you think you got on your physical exam?"  
"Forty percent?" I guessed, shrugging and investigating a random bruise on the back of her hand. I knew I must've been hopeless.  
"Seventy-four," M said. "Psychology, now. What do you think came up?"  
"All the general from someone who's been tortured. Mental scarring, chance of bad nightmares, possible alcoholism or substance addiction, that sort of thing."  
"No less psychologically stable than you were when you left. All in all, Evelyn, I am very impressed with how you've turned out. With the exception of just one thing. Now, I very seldom call agents in here unless there is cause for concern or I think there is a need for them to step down, and you are no different. Why do you think that might be?"  
"Search me," I murmured, looking up, completely drained of color. Okay, why the hell was I being told to step down after I had been *this* close to dying?  
"Your self defense has gone completely down the pan. Your martial arts skills are severely lacking and your ability to fire a gun is totally nonexistent. I was intending to promote you to a 00, until these results came through. I am afraid that you have to leave MI6 unless you are willing to keep on as a mission controller or secretary. I've lost another agent as well; Bond, your rescuer, was demoted from 007 to a regular agent - I'd made it clear that I'd been intending to tell you that the mission objective had changed and that I needed Sauvage, Dealcoire and Sanchez alive for questioning and that he wasn't to kill them under any circumstances. But, for you, there is a silver lining. Look at this." M handed me an envelope. I could barely read it, due to the tears welling up in my quite a long while it had angered her, but the three letters at the top of the paper, in time, changed everything._

* * *

They say that every cloud has it's silver lining. And that particular dark cloud that had swallowed me up after that last mission has gained me not one but two things. My current position, as when the last M had retired, he had left the role in my well-capable hands. And the final three letters of my real name. MBE.

I stare hard at one of the scars above the inside of my wrist. Scars don't fade as I know by now, both physical and mental. But you have to let go. To quote Lana Del Rey, I know how I feel about Tiago;  
_There's no remedy for memory,  
His face is like a melody,  
It won't leave my head,  
His soul is haunting me and telling me that everything is fine,  
But I wish I was dead..._

But I have to let go. I can't let my past haunt her forever. I sigh again, and start tapping into my computer the end of my Tiago - once an idiotic partner, once a slightly less idiotic toyboy, once a lover always a mutual friend's - final dossier.

* * *

_Tiago Rodriguez was one of the best agents I have come across in my whole career. In a word; reliable. I would have trusted the man with my life. And nothing pains me more than to write these few words. Tiago Rodriguez is missing and presumed dead after a mission in Dandong, China. He leaves no known family, but was an enormous credit to this service. Today, MI6 lost a great agent..._

* * *

_But life goes on, _I think now. Years have flown, tears been cried and my heart torn out and smashed against the hard ground by the husband who should have been there. I need to learn to live in now; in the present.

Scars don't fade. The sins of a murderess - La Péchés d'une Meurtrière - can't be erased from the memory. But life goes on...

-Fin-


End file.
